


Letters and Papers from Prison

by Zelos



Series: Absolution's Grace [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Betrayal, Closure, Community: avengerkink, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Male Friendship, Manhattan Project, Post-World War II, Regret, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 20:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on avengerkink.</p><p>There was no other way to put this: these were confessions from a dead man.</p><p>Howard Stark, on his own successes and failures; Steve and Tony, on what Howard left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Don't Fear the Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11065.html?thread=24977465#t24977465) at avengerkink:
> 
> Some time after the movie, Fury presents Steve with a box full of documents from SHIELD storage--letters addressed to him, written by Howard Stark. There's hundreds of them, spanning decades, from the days leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima to just days before his death. Fury's never read them (or so he claims) but he's withheld them from Tony because he's pretty sure Howard would never have wanted his family to see the contents--why else would he have addressed them to a dead man and hidden them away in his office instead of at home?
> 
> Steve, of course, realizes pretty quickly that the "letters" are shockingly personal--more like a diary, or a confessional, Howard venting all kinds of feelings that he was never brave enough to share with anyone face to face. Maybe he felt lingering guilt for his role in the Manhattan Project; maybe he was bitterly cynical about the direction the country as a whole was taking; maybe he was acutely aware of his inadequacies as a husband and father but felt he was too old to change. There's good stuff, though, too: his love for Maria, pride in Tony, excitement about his work and desperate hope that he might be the one to save the world before it slipped beyond saving. 
> 
> Steve decides to share the letters with Tony, in the hopes of bridging the gap between the Howard he knew and the Howard Tony remembers.

“Captain,” Fury said as they wrapped up their debriefing, the others filing out, “can I speak to you for a moment?”

Steve stood at attention, straightening as Fury approached; this wasn't the army, and Fury didn't put much weight into ceremony, but old habits didn't die. Fury produced a large box from seemingly nowhere, handing it to Steve with a gravity that surprised him. “This is yours.”

Steve's brows hiked. His personal effects – what little had survived and could be tracked down innocuously after 70 years, anyway – had all been returned to him; he wasn't aware of there having been anything else left to find. Certainly not anything this heavy. “Sir?”

Fury nodded his acquiescence. Steve set the box down, ran his fingers over the SHIELD logo stamped onto aged cardboard, and carefully opened the box.

Papers. The box was filled with them, yellowed with age, the edges brittle and crinkling. There was a small forest's worth in the box, sheets folded together at the corners. Now thoroughly baffled, he pulled out one arbitrary page to skim.

_Steve,_

_The next Expo is in two days. I have tons to show this year, and -_

Steve froze, old loss aching in his chest. That precise, blocky script...he'd recognize it even if he was _dead_. He'd seen it so many times – the only handwriting that he'd seen more of had been Bucky's and his own. He looked up, staring askance at Fury.

“We found them in his office, after Stark – Howard – died,” Fury explained, expression sombre. “A lot of his work during his later years was for SHIELD, so we cleaned out our things before the military got theirs...and we found these. I've never read them. Didn't think anyone else should.”

“But they're not mine,” Steve managed after a moment, mouth dry. “I mean...they thought I was dead.”

“They're addressed to you, aren't they?” Fury pointed out, and that was almost...gentle. “If anyone should read them, it's you. They're yours, anyhow; do with them as you see fit.”

Steve looked at the sheet in his hands, then down at the box, the latter filled to the brim. There must have been _hundreds_ of them; even if Howard had written every week (and he couldn't imagine how Howard would've had the time), it would've taken _years_ to amass this many. Tony had mentioned Howard missed him a lot (to put it mildly), but _this?_

He slid the errant letter back into its place and carefully closed the box. He hefted the box into his hands, hoping its weight would disguise his shaking. “If I may, sir?”

Fury nodded. “Dismissed.”

Steve didn't thank him as he left.

 

He locked his bedroom door, which he rarely did. Not that a door (even a Stark door) would stop anyone who put their mind to the task, but JARVIS, at least, respected privacy; he trusted (hoped) that JARVIS wouldn't bother him, nor let anyone else bother him, unless there was a true emergency.

The climate-controlled air felt suddenly, inexplicably, _cold_. “ _Howard_ ,” he said softly; of course, nobody replied. Steve spent a long time just staring at the box, wary and afraid in ways he couldn't name.

Howard had been...of anyone he had ever known back then, Howard had _been_ The Future, in a completely different way than the peace and quiet that the boys wished for when nursing the wounded and burying the dead. Howard didn't _do_ peace and quiet, preferring fast cars and bright lights and a dame on each arm; he was charm and brilliance, possibility and hope and...the catalyst, maybe even the person who'd bring about and build that better tomorrow they'd all been hoping for.

So very, very like Tony, then, and he could see how Tony was Howard's son. Granted, all the stories of Howard he'd been told since he woke said that Howard did a lot of things right – technology-wise, at least – but he failed far more than he succeeded, in the things that _mattered_. And Steve knew that, too, from the hollow-faced shadow he'd seen pictures of, the man Howard changed into over the years...

 _Why?_ he'd asked before to unanswering stone, and these wouldn't explain, either...or maybe they would.

That might be _worse_.

He carefully removed the first letter from the box. The old papers protested the movement, yellowed and crinkling with age; for a moment, Steve thought he pictured dark, familiar, foreign eyes.

 

_29 April 1945_

_Rogers,_

_Off the top of my head, I can think of about 60 different ways for you to have died in the crash, complete with angles and velocities and all the calculus – but somehow, I kept hoping..._

_I'm not a hoping man, Rogers. Burned it out of me a long time ago; no idea how you did any different. I think even Carter accepted it before I did._

_It's not nice to stand a lady up, Rogers. That's my next tip on women, right after fondue and never assume. Don't make her cry, either – but I guess it's too late for that, huh?_

_They held a wake for you last night. I didn't go._

_I heard Phillips cried (insofar as misty-eyed counts as crying, but that's as close as you'll get, with him). Tough as nails, wouldn't flinch if you shot him point-blank, and you made him cry._

_HYDRA better not raid tomorrow. There won't be a single man sober enough to hold his damn gun._

 

Oh. Oh. A _wake_...no one'd told him that. And Phillips, and Peggy, and Dum Dum and Morita and everyone else...

 _I wasn't dead_ , he wanted to say, but that was 70 years and a lifetime too late.

Steve swallowed, setting the letter aside with near reverence, and moved on to the next.

 

_09 May 1945_

_Rogers,_

_Victory in Europe. Almost didn't think I'd live to see the day._

_We're going home, Rogers – going home to rest. Rest forever, for some. Hodge buried the flag at camp before they left – closest thing to a burial for you, I guess. I think Falsworth and the others would've done it if they'd been around to._

_I've got a project to finish in Manhattan – remember when you asked me why I haven't been medal'd for my contributions to the war, and I told you they're only for valour in combat? I lied – this might get me a medal or two, but it wouldn't make me deserve it._

_Our ace in the hole – we'd been so resistant to actually making it, because of the havoc it'd wreck; now, I wonder if we should've done it sooner. Full speed ahead, I say – maybe if we had, we wouldn't have lost so much in Europe._

_Maybe if we had, we wouldn't have lost you._

_The war isn't completely over yet, and Japan has a lot to answer for still, but all the vengeance won't bring you back. But...a statement. A declaration. A warning, for all those that come after._

_No more good men._

 

“ _Howard,_ ” and he wondered if this had been the turning point for Howard, when Howard began his irrevocable slide down, down, down. They'd all had breaking points, each and every one, and after Bucky was gone Steve...well, he might've broken too, had his long hibernation not made the point entirely moot.

He fervently read on. There were several short letters in between, looking more like science notes than actual letters, though they were still addressed to him nonetheless. He ignored those, skimming through for ones he could read.

 

_6 August 1945_

_Little Boy landed today. We promised Japan 'prompt and utter destruction'._

_We delivered._

_I delivered._

 

_2 September 1945_

_Steve,_

_We won. Japan announced its surrender nearly three weeks ago, and they finally signed the Instrument of Surrender today._

_It's official. We won. We finally, finally won._

_Victory doesn't feel victorious. I thought that was because VE Day wasn't the end, but this...doesn't feel any better. It feels...tired and empty. That shouldn't be what peacetime feels like, right?_

_Did we do what we set out to do?_

_Was it worth it?_

 

“ _Stupid_ ,” Steve hissed through suddenly clenched teeth, though that was as much anger as grief tightening his chest. His hands twitched, tightening convulsively against fragile paper. “Damn it, Stark - ”

Back then...Howard had been the one to smile when there was nothing left to smile for, easy laughter about that brighter tomorrow that seemed just around the corner, instead of so very far away. He'd realized, some time ago, that it was more laughing to keep from crying than actual joy; Howard had his breaking moments, too, in the depths of SSR's sanctum at some absurd hour, alone but for his machines. Steve'd seen him smile and seen him laugh and seen him break behind dark eyes, but he'd never seen self-pity.

Maudlin didn't suit Howard. Self-pity suited even less.

Howard had done a lot of changing over the years.

 

 _Truman had asked me what I thought. I said yes. No more war. No more good men. Between the choice of America and innocent Japanese lives, I chose_ ~~_you_ ~~ _America_ _._

 _I tell myself it was the smart choice, the logical choice, and the numbers will back me up. Choosing between_ ~~_thousands tens of thousands_ ~~ _hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives, and millions of lives of the Allied countries. I tell myself it was a race against time, and that if we hadn't dropped the bomb they would have; if it hadn't been me heading the whole thing it'd have been someone else, and most likely that someone else would've dropped the ball and the Axis scientists would've blown_ _ us _ _up instead. Put that way, it shouldn't be a choice at all, when the Project had definitively ended the war that cost everyone too much. When a single choice I make_ ~~_can_ ~~ _will save the world, to choose otherwise would be a strange choice indeed._

_Apologies and excuses are useless; they're thousands of lives too late and I don't think I deserve them. These are just numbers. Logic. Unarguable output._

_I'm long past forgiveness, I know; is this what they call the self-pity of the murderer?_

_And still...and_ _ still _ _. For all the blood, for all the cost... I know, in my bones, that it'll be nothing but a false peace._

 

Steve couldn't even read anymore. There was no other way to put this: these were confessions from a dead man. Though Howard had never been on the front lines he was no less a soldier, with the highest body count Steve had ever known. But the way he spoke (wrote), like the massacre had been his _duty_ , his _right_...

For all that these were addressed to him, for him, and he may be the only one alive who was equipped to read them...he couldn't. Not right now.

He flung the papers aside and _ran_ , bursting from the Tower like it was a cage; ran, flat out – an all-out sprint, trying to outrun his doubts and memories. He ran until even he dropped from exhaustion and nausea, retching uselessly against a tree.

He wondered if Howard had retched then, too.

 

Over the next several weeks, he read the letters a little bit at a time; sometimes for 15 minutes, sometimes for three hours or more. JARVIS quietly extracted himself every time he locked his door; the AI never _announced_ it, per se, and certainly never asked, but Steve noticed it in the little ways, like how the faucet in his bathroom stopped auto-adjusting its temperature when he splashed water onto his face. Steve would thank him, only that would probably betray the tactfulness JARVIS exhibited, and defeated the purpose entirely.

The others, lacking JARVIS' near-omniscience, weren't quite as tactful, but even Tony stopped bothering him after he (publicly, viciously) destroyed the eighth (Stark-reinforced, nigh indestructible) punching bag in under two hours.

 

_13 February 1946_

_Steve,_

_They gave me a medal today for 'invaluable contributions to our war efforts'. I've forgotten its name already._

_I threw it in a box, then thought better of it. I left it at the Arlington memorial._

_I hope you don't mind._

 

The next one has no date, just a shaky scrawl on paper, the page marred by splotches of ink.

 

_264,000, Steve. Men, women, and children._

_I knew the math, I designed them for god's sake, and Little Boy and Fat Man did everything I wanted them to do._

_I don't know if I wanted the right thing._

_I want to throw up again._

 

The letters began spacing out, sometimes two a week, sometimes with several months in between. Stark Industries had boomed after the war, and Steve knew SI had only grown more with each subsequent war. Like before, many of the letters were more formulae than words, as if they were back in the SSR's labs again and Howard was sharing his latest inventions with Steve, the latter only pretending to understand. Exhilaration and pride seeped through the few words that were there; did Howard forget that Steve wasn't an engineer?

But there were others, too, still in normal English, stories and characters and confessions between the lines; even as the _d_ _ramatis personæ_ in Howard's life increased in size, Howard sounded more and more isolated as time went on. It ached, hard in Steve's chest, that he missed so much and left his friend alone; he found himself wondering if Howard would've been different, if _all of it_ would have been different, if he hadn't gone down in the ice...

 

_03 February 1947_

_Steve,_

_I found a partner to run SI with me; SI's growing too much for me to handle alone, and I hate the administration bullshit anyway. Ironic, how I profited the most from a war that I'd tried my best to end._

_His name's Obadiah Stane. He reminds me of you, somewhat – blue eyes, blond hair...well, he lost all his hair already, but he was blond, once upon a time._

_He's quieter than you; soft-spoken and confident, always thinking about something. Told me he was a chess grandmaster, and I'm not surprised. It shows in his strategizing; he knows how to work the tides of business better than anyone I've ever known._

“ _We'll find north,” he told me, and I wish I could believe._

 

_24 April 1949_

_Steve,_

_I found Zola's cube today. I had hoped you were close, but we scoured a 100 mile radius around that spot and still no sign of anything._

_I'd give a lot to know where the hell HYDRA found this thing – it's amazing; weaponry doesn't do it justice. It's almost literally an unlimited energy source, and I'd power the planet with it if I wasn't worried about HYDRA weapons v.2.0._

_Obadiah asked me if it could make weapons. I said no._

 

_04 August 1952_

_Steve,_

_I never trusted the government again after the war, so...I made my own instead. (Isn't that the Stark solution to everything?)_

_Strictly speaking, Fury and I have built a government agency meant to protect America from the shadows. I have more sway over the government than I ever thought possible; even the president himself bows to me in respect. And yet...yet, I don't know, if the time comes,_ _ when _ _the time comes, if they'll have enough gumption to pull the trigger. Worse, whether they'll pull the trigger I want them to._

_If I'm going to hell for my sins, I may as well get some say in what I commit. I believe in due process, in the mechanisms and trappings of the legal system, but sometimes, we all need a...push._

_It's strange, that I'm running this with Fury, and not Obie. On paper, it's a strange choice. Nicholas Joseph Fury, the ex-CIA agent who'd built his life around espionage and secrets, and how do I know he won't end up stabbing_ _ me _ _in the back? But somehow, I can't see doing this with Obie, even if by all measures, I've put more faith in him; he has much more rope to hang me with should he decide to put me to ruin. Maybe it's because Fury seems like he's seen war, real war, in ways Obie hasn't._

_I don't really know myself. But this isn't, won't be, can't be Obadiah's bailiwick._

_Stark tech. We stand in between our boys and those who wish to harm. And now, SHIELD._

_I want my shield back. You took all my vibranium with you, you bastard._

_Come back home, Steve._

 

Death has a tendency to turn a person into a faultless plaster saint in people's memories, and it said a lot that even with that, Howard was no saint. But he was _human_ , and he failed, and he tried...and like anyone else, sometimes he didn't make it there, genius be damned.

Howard wasn't the face of America, a mindless war profiteer, the man they remembered from the newsreels any more than he was a faultless plaster saint. Sharp and charming and brittle and dark – _that_ was the Howard Stark he knew, and thought he had forgotten. Steve thought, somewhere along the lines, Howard had forgotten who he was, as well.

There were other things, too; warmer things, happier things. Increasing mentions of a woman named Maria Carbonell, and Steve recognized that name from the biography of the future Mrs. Stark. Howard was spare on the details, as was usual for anything that didn't have to do with engineering, but Steve gleaned enough from reading between the lines: the daughter of a socialite, Italian-bred and American-born. She wasn't Peggy (whom Howard had mentioned, wistfully, to have gone off on a mission and never returned; Steve was surprised at how much that hurt), no, but she was smart and sharp – of _course_ she was, to keep up with Howard Stark. 20 years Howard's junior and miles above her peers, and maybe she didn't invent the arc reactor technology but she knew how to ground the man that did, just a little, just enough.

Howard still went on his slow march towards death nonetheless, but Steve thought he'd have done so much sooner without Maria.

 

_17 June 1968_

_I proposed to Maria today. Insofar that I gave her a shiny rock, anyway –_ _ she _ _did the asking. And where the hell else would you find a woman who'd ask a man, who'd ask_ _ Howard Stark _ _, to marry her?_

 _I asked if she was sure – because people talk, they_ _ already _ _talk, and I'm 20 years too old for her and an iron monger besides. She's been on my arm for upwards of six months now, and I've heard the whispers calling her a gold-digger and a whore and worse, and that's just within my earshot. She deserves better than that, better than me, better than anything Stark Industries could give her._

“ _I'm sure,” she says back, “as long as you want me,” and Jesus Christ, she's stronger than I am._

 

_03 March 1969_

_Maria said she wants to start charity work, and I asked her again, “are you sure”. Not because she couldn't do it, or would do it badly – she could be, no, would be fantastic, and if she was anyone else I'd tell her full-speed ahead and I'd donate all her startup costs._

_But that's just it. Stark Industries. She catches enough shit by marrying a war profiteer, and to help victims of war with blood money, with the same coin spilled with their blood... Liar would be the least of what she would hear, even for something like this._

“ _I'm sure, Howard.” I don't even know why that hurts._

_I design weapons of war and leave death and destruction in my wake. Maria follows me, picking up the pieces, aiding the hurt and broken and burying the remains._

_There's no symbolism in our respective careers at all._

_I wish you'd met her, Steve. I wish I could be half of what you and Carter and Maria all turned out to be._

 

_11 May 1971_

_Maria safely delivered a boy yesterday, Anthony Edward Stark. I think the doctors and nurses were surprised I wasn't at the hospital._

_I saw Maria after – and with anyone else they'd want me to apologize, but with Maria I don't have to. She knows exactly who I am, and if she doesn't stay because of it, at least she stays in spite of it._

_But Anthony – Tony – isn't Maria; Maria knew who I was before she said yes, but I can't see my son agreeing to that sort of bargain. And maybe having the boy at all was a mistake, but...she wanted him, and it's not like I can't provide; high-class living and expensive galas aside, I haven't given her much over the years._

_I couldn't say no to this, but I don't know how to be a father._

 

_04 July 1974_

_Stark Expo gets bigger every year, and I wonder, is that fair?_

_"Everything is achievable through technology," I tell them, and I'm lying through my teeth. I can build them weapons, I can keep our boys safe, but they expect me to singlehandedly build them peace like I build weapons of mass destruction and I don't know how to do that. And aren't they looking in the wrong place, if they're looking towards an iron monger and a war profiteer to save the world? We lost our hero, our national icon, and_ _ this _ _is the next best thing, because I was close enough to flip a switch for you, way back then?_

_America, how low you have fallen._

_The nukes were supposed to_ _ end _ _the war. They were supposed to bring_ _ peace _ _. And we ended that war and started another, and another, and another; humans have a remarkable ability to butcher each other over insignificant differences, and now tensions are rising in Korea and Vietnam and the USSR and we keep finding more reasons to put them down. And I keep building the weapons that'll quell the uprisings, calm the riots, bring our boys home._

_But that's not peace, is it? That's dictatorship at best, and whoever has the biggest stick shouts loudest. With Stark Tech at their backs, America has a lot to shout about._

_This wasn't what I was going for. All the blood that we spilled, all the lives that were lost...even for peace the price is still high, but the war never really ended. It just changed its name. I can't save them, and I don't know how to even begin trying._

_I keep building the weapons that will bring our boys home. Maybe I'm just putting them out there all the_ _same._

_Dictatorship is the closest peace I can build, and it's a distant second place._

 

_19 September 1975_

_Tony built a circuit board today. Rudimentary in the extreme, of course, but impressive, for a four year old. I got Obie to call the magazines. They've been vying for a glimpse at Tony now that he's out of diapers and pacifiers, and this is as good an occasion as any._

_Maria tells me – the only complaint she's had about me over the years – that I don't pay enough attention to Tony, and I don't, it's true. Clandestine government organizations take a lot of time, and I don't think she'd want me to talk weaponry at the boy. Maybe this will make up for the attention I can't give him._

_I'm sending him away for school. He's miles beyond his peers, and will be wasted in a regular school. I don't have the time to teach him, doubt I'd do any kind of job even if I did. My footsteps lead from war to war; my terrible purpose is an arms race against the world._

_I wish he'd met you, Steve. Maybe you could've been the father figure and good influence I'll never be._

 

_11 November 1975_

_When I had Vanko deported, I knew then we'd never get any further with the arc reactor in my lifetime – not because he was so invaluable, but because of the limits of my time. The palladium core is too limiting, its usable lifetime too short._

_I've ran the calculations over a hundred times now, and I'm sure – as sure as I can be without actual tests. Vibranium will work, but the technology isn't here yet for me to build. I had hoped to have done more with that alien cube, hoped that I could hand Tony an empire that was at least partially clean of blood, but..._

_You took all my vibranium with you, you bastard._

_I hid the molecular structure of vibranium into the model for last year's Expo; Tony'll find it and do something with it - bigger and better than I ever could. I wouldn't expect any less from my greatest creation, who built a circuit board at four years when his peers were busy learning how to speak._

_I hope he finds it, and finds better, brighter things. Clean energy. Clean technology. Clean the legacy of blood._

_Maybe he'll finally end the war._

 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Steve breathed, but there was no one to hear. “He's your _son_ , Howard – not a _creation_.” Howard had never seemed like...the father type, true; hell, the man had barely even known how to talk to anyone outside the context of his work (fascinating as it was). But... _creation?_ “He's your _son._ ”

Loving someone – and he _did_ believe Howard loved Tony – didn't necessarily make for a good parent; Fury had said Howard had never been Father of the Year, but...

He drew a shuddering breath, closing his eyes, the page drifting from slacken hands. Steve felt cold, colder than he had been in the ice, anger and grief and displaced resentment tightening his chest like a fist around his heart and yeah, yeah, _this_ was what people meant by Tony's daddy issues, because he sure as hell would've had issues if his own parents referred to him as a _creation_. Steve had never known his father; Joseph Rogers had died before he was born, and men from his time were hardly comfortable with outward displays of affection, but he hoped to hell that, battle fatigue be _damned_ , his father would've done better than this.

He had always liked Howard, back then. He had far more affiliation with him than any other Commando, and the secrets that they kept together bred a sort of intimacy; even so, he never _understood_ the man, and not just because of Howard's science tangents. Howard had kept himself apart, for all that Steve had been closer to him than anyone else (save for, perhaps, Maria, whom by all accounts _understood_ the man without ever being _close_ to him). Even when vulnerable, Howard had been...untouchable. Steve never knew of Howard Stark before Howard flipped a switch for him; he learned of the myth after knowing the man.

Now, with Howard's darkest truths nakedly on display, he wondered if he would ever understand Howard at all.

 

The letters began slowing in frequency, stretching to months in between each. More and more of the pages looked less like letters and more like scratch paper for science as Howard worked out the details to yet another invention that'd turn the world on its ear again. Howard had divested more and more control of SI to Obadiah; he stopped travelling, leaving even that to his partner (there was a dispassionate note about an incident where he'd been mobbed on the street and called a murderer the one time he visited Japan), and all signs pointed to him having retreated further and further into the bottle and his work.

It was unsettling (if unsurprising) that Obadiah was mentioned far more than Tony or Maria. There _were_ a few mentions of fights with Tony, but far less than Steve expected; maybe there hadn't been that many...or, more likely, there had been so many it was no longer noteworthy.

 

_18 May 1988_

“ _Mr. Stark, Mr. Stane will be away for the next two days to attend...your son's graduation,” they tell me, and it's almost funny, the way they think I don't know. It's hard to miss a son that graduates summa cum laude from MIT at 17._

 _Knowing isn't doing, but Tony doesn't want me there. This is_ _ his _ _day, and for once, I might as well give him what he wants._

 

_23 August 1990_

_Steve,_

_47 years ago, when Erskine gave you that serum, we'd intended on making a whole slew of super soldiers. Then he'd gotten himself shot and didn't even leave any decent notes; decades of research later, we're still no closer to recreating Erskine's serum._

_Phillips and Carter had entrusted me with your data; I was the principal collector of said data in numerous cases anyway, and the possibility of them getting shelled was too high for them to oversee the project. I can't said_ _ I've _ _succeeded, but..._

_We've recreated one of your enhanced collagen-glycoaminoglycan scaffolds, Steve. By itself it might not mean much, but it's paving the way for the future, and already tests are showing a small but statistically significant improvement to tissue regeneration over repair. I know you could heal from damn near anything – I inflicted several of those wounds myself – but I had never dared to hope that...well, I'd never thought I'd ever do more than find new ways to hurt._

_The papers have been published and for once the revolution doesn't kill. I had Fury arrange the details and conduct the research under another name and umbrella, because it's not like Stark Medical would ever take off – Stark Industries is built on arms and war, not medicine and healing. But the details don't matter – it's getting it out there that counts._

_Even dead and beyond the grave, you're saving lives._

 

_10 December 1991_

_Maria and I just came back from yet another swanky bullshit gala and smiled for the cameras and the whole thing was more ridiculous than I can say. We spent probably a small country's GDP on setting that thing up._

_Maria's in bed now. I'm obviously not, but we haven't shared a bed in years. She knows this, expects this; she knew what she was getting into when she married me, and I've delivered through and through. “I will fail you,” I told her as much, and she said she'd stay with me for as long as I want her, no matter how bad I got._

_I'm...grateful, I think (and too goddamn stubborn and selfish to change), although it's been so long since we spoke I'm not...wholly sure I'd notice if she up and left one day. She's even been faithful, I think, not that I'd blame her either way..._

_Edwin reminded me that it's almost Christmas, as he does every year; I've learned to ignore him. Anything they want, they can buy for themselves; I've made sure that neither of them are ever wanting of material things._

_I know that's not what he meant._

 

The last thing in the box wasn't a letter, but a newspaper clipping, the front page of the Washington Times: HOWARD AND MARIA STARK DIE IN CAR ACCIDENT ON LONG ISLAND

 _December 17, 1991_ , and the date ached hard in Steve's chest.

It was a long while before Steve numbly laid the letter down to join the other pages, the box finally divested of its contents. Aged and forlorn and as empty as the man who'd filled it, 20+ years ago.

 _Damn it, Stark_ , but wasn't that as inadequate as anything Howard had offered to those who mattered? It said a lot, that Fury mentioned Tony's daddy issues during Steve's post-ice debriefing, even so long after Howard's death.

The man they all remembered from the newsreels had promised to singlehandedly build America her future...and yet, he couldn't even build his own.

Steve began placing the papers back into the box, taking care with the worn pages. Someone else needed to read these, too.


	2. The Son Also Rises

“Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting entry,” JARVIS announced, and Steve stepped through the doors, eyes anxiously darting about. He was doing this, he _was,_ but he wasn't sure if it was a good idea, and he most definitely did not have Tony's experience at feeding peanuts to the great pink elephant in the middle of the room.

“Cap,” Tony greeted, half-waving with his acetylene torch as Steve approached. “You here to help me with the dosage for Barton's new tranq arrows?”

“No...um. Ah.” Steve took a deep breath, blurted it out before he lost his nerve. “Tony, I've...got something for you. Letters. From your father.”

The air chilled palpably between them; Tony stilled, then slowly pulled off his welding goggles. He stared at Steve, eyes narrowing, surprise warring with suspicion. “Letters? For me?”

“...no. For me. Fury gave them to me. I just thought...I thought you should read them.” Steve had already carefully removed all letters that mentioned Howard and his experiments on Steve – not that he regretted it, not that he was ashamed, but public opinion – and Tony's opinion – of Howard was bad enough already. They weren't pertinent to Tony, anyway; the ones left, the vast majority, Tony could appreciate...without going into questionable ethics that Steve had wholly consented to.

“Look, Steve,” the brush-off, the deflection, Steve had been expecting it and Tony delivered, clipped and dismissive. The torch was still burning. “I don't have any interest in his old love letters - ”

“ _Tony_ ,” and that was pleading and he didn't care. Tony fell silent. “Look, I know you two didn't get along, and that was his fault and not yours, but...” Howard had failed, and succeeded, and failed some more; Steve wondered if it'd console his friend any if he helped to mend some of what Howard threw away.

He wondered if he was doing it for Howard, or for himself.

Tony watched him for a long, silent moment, hard and searching, and something finally shifted behind dark eyes. “Fine. Dummy! You!”

The two robots came as bidden, carrying the box away between them and nearly dropping it three times. Tony watched them with a flicker of fond exasperation, then shook his head and turned back to Steve. “I'll put it on my to-do list, all right, fearless leader?” His dark eyes and raised chin belied the exaggerated glibness in his voice, warned Steve not to push. “Now if you'll excuse me, I've got magical stretching yoga pants to engineer.”

That was as good as Steve was going to get, and he wordlessly showed himself out.

 

Two months later, JARVIS politely pinged for Steve's attention one afternoon, and requested Steve's presence in Tony's workshop. Tony was waiting for him, surprisingly not elbows-deep in the guts of one invention or another. He was sitting on the lab cot, the box beside him.

Steve stopped in front of him, forced a smile. “Tony.” He purposely kept his gaze on Tony's face. “You rang?”

Tony stared hard at him, dark eyes searching and face a flat mask; eventually, grudgingly, he motioned for Steve to sit. The long, drawn-out silence that followed was heavy and cloying.

“Why did,” Tony finally said, nudging the box towards Steve, “why did you give me these to read?”

“Because...” Steve trailed off, searching for words. _Because I want you to understand. Because_ I _want to understand. Because you're his_ son _, and he loved you, and failed you, and he_ knew that _..._

“...because you're his son,” he finally said, hoarse and soft and completely inadequate. “I...thought you should know.”

Tony produced a bottle and two glasses with an air of weary finality, and poured them both drinks. Steve accepted his without even asking what it was, swirled the amber liquid slowly in his glass. Tony watched him, eyes dark and inscrutable.

“The Howard I knew wasn't anything like your father,” Steve finally said, trying to fill the silence. “I know, he changed, _I know_ \- road to hell, good intentions, and even his intentions may not have been that pure, but...” So many people have told him about Howard, and Tony, and unfavourable comparisons and a mile-long list of failures for both men, and Steve wanted to help Tony - and himself - reconcile the two Howards. _He_ remembered Howard as the sly engineer with the nimble hands helping him up, whereas everyone else saw a cold, calculating mask at the helm of Stark Industries. The latter man had done a number on Tony, by all accounts; Steve thought that things might've been different, had he not gone down into the ice. He wasn't so arrogant as to believe he'd change the world, but all evidence showed that Howard had been very damaged by how everything turned out.

Granted, he was decades too late to change all that, but if he could help Howard validate his son, maybe he could make up for some of Howard's failures.

Maybe not.

“What was he like?” Tony asked.

Steve thought for a moment. “Sly. Brilliant. Not...arrogant, really; more like he knew he was heads and shoulders above us all and didn't bother sugarcoating it - didn't _intentionally_ make us feel stupid, we just all felt stupid on our own whenever he talked.” He took a swig, liquor burning down his throat. “Had a hell of a poker face. I thought...I thought he was a bit of a psychopath at first, the way he never seemed to be affected by...war, death, our boys not coming home, y'know? But...he grieved, too, just never let anyone see him like that. I caught him a couple of times, but otherwise...”

Steve remembered Howard's face, during those dark, quiet, restless nights. Howard had been pulling triple shifts to make last-minute upgrades and adjustments to weapons and tech before a raid, running on nothing but coffee and cigars and his own iron will. There was that strange, hard, desperate look on Howard's face as he glared at whatever contraption he was engineering, something breaking behind dark eyes. The difference was unsettling, compared to Howard's usual swagger and charm and nonchalance in the face of death.

Steve struggled to find words, spreading his hands helplessly. “A lot of the boys didn't think he had an empathetic bone his body, but...he tried, and he was just one guy against HYDRA's entire team that had years of head start on him. He'd swagger and grin and saunter and you'd think he was doing, no, _living_ a show, but...”

But during those dark, quiet nights Howard Stark cracked like anyone else, and Howard did try - but he was just one man, an imperfect one besides, and when his tech wasn't perfect people died. Howard's body count - both for those his tech killed and those his tech didn't save - was staggeringly high.

Howard had lots of ghosts to haunt him over the years.

Tony accepted this wordlessly, taking large gulps of his drink, watching him with dark eyes, Howard's eyes, and Steve's heart tightened in his chest.

“I don't hate him, you know,” he finally said. “Never did.”

Steve's brows hiked into his hairline and - despite himself, despite the gravity of it all - he barely refrained from snorting.

“Okay,” Tony amended, “there wasn't a lot of love lost between us in the earlier years. And no, we were never the Kodak picturesque family, then, now, or ever. I never knew if he even _liked_ me, never mind loved me.”

“He did,” Steve protested softly, because Howard really, really did, even if he had been shit at actually showing even a fraction of it.

Tony waved that off. “I know that _now_ , but that's...what, 40-odd years too late?”

This wasn't painting much of a picture of Tony's claimed 'I don't hate him.' “But...”

Tony grinned then, sly and dark with just a hint of teeth - an expression so familiar that Steve's breath stopped in his chest. “He said I'm his greatest creation. That counts for something, right?”

“What?” That was...possibly the strangest thing to be proud of, and the harshest thing Howard had said about Tony, in Steve's opinion. “Tony...you're his _son_ , not a – a – ”

Tony's savage grin faded to something a little softer, a little more genuine. “Yeah, for everyone else, that might be adding more insult to injury. But...we're _Starks_.” He flung a careless hand around the room, sardony and pain and a faint, fierce _pride_ glittering in his eyes. “I _made_ Dummy, and You, and JARVIS. And if _anyone_ wants to tell them, or me, that they're not _real_ because they're _made_...well, god help them.” He arched a brow, and now his smile held just a hint of challenge. “Besides, Dad made _you_ , too. Pretty favourable comparison, if you ask me.”

And oh, Tony was his father's son, right down to the “speaking modestly, I'm the best mechanical engineer in this country”. Except...in _this_ , if nothing else, Tony was Howard's better, because Steve has no doubt that Tony's bots knew exactly how he felt.

“He never stopped looking for you, y'know,” Tony said abruptly, a little more sombre now. “A flying car...hell, he'd have built you a ship to the moon if you asked, had he found you. He loved you that much.”

“Me? But Maria...”

“No, not like that. I don't think. Or...well, maybe. I don't know.” Tony shrugged. “Just...you don't know what you were to him, do you? Friends, yeah, comrades, yeah, brothers and soldiers and all that, even if he didn't think of himself as a soldier. But you were his _symbol_. Hope. Freedom. That elusive American dream that he had spent so long trying to build, but never quite making it there.” Tony cracked a smile, bitter and wry. “I mean, where _else_ did he get the name for his clandestine government organization?”

Steve's breath stopped short; _that_ had never occurred to him, and what the hell could he say to _that?_

“He wasn't going to build me a flying car.” Steve swallowed hard; words failed him, and he blurted after a moment, “He said _we'd_ build it, after the war, and he'd teach me calculus and physics...”

“Calculus and physics?”

“Yeah. Said he was impressed by my intuitive understanding, or something.” Steve mimed a flinging motion halfheartedly, hand falling back into his lap.

Tony looked thoughtful. “He never built that flying car; focused on other things after the war.” Obviously. “But I could...I could upgrade your bike. He built that; I could fit it with some of the suit's thrusters and repulsors. It could work.”

Steve barked a laugh, took another swig, and the smoky tang of scotch tasted like ashes. “Not the same.” He hadn't _wanted_ a flying car, or motorcycle, or anything in particular, he just wanted something better than the crossfire stitching of soldiers and canvas bag burials at sea. He wanted that bright and shining future as much as anyone else did, way back then, and he was actually lucky enough to live to _see_ it – modern day America, technology and glamour and never-ending lights, that shining tomorrow they had all been hoping for. They'd built it, Howard and Tony and the rest of the American Dream.

He wondered if he would've been so keen on it had he known the cost.

He still wasn't sure now.

“Might be closer than you think.” Tony laughed too, sharp and jagged and old, grieving pains. “You know those repulsors were developed from the stuff he used for his prototype car, right?”

Steve stared at him for so long his eyes started to water and he realized he's not actually breathing, choked out a gasp that turned to laughter until he's shaking with the force of it, felt like his soul was shaking apart.

Of course, Howard's flying car used the fledgling technology that would one day become Iron Man's repulsors. Of _course_ it was. What _else_ could it be?

“You know,” he finally said, hoarse and ragged and very, very soft, “I still haven't tried fondue.”

Tony stared at him like he grew another head and of course, _of course_ he didn't get it, no one but Peggy and Howard would; this wasn't the 40s anymore and the people, the times, the whole _world_ has changed and Steve felt that loss all the way in his core, a yawning ache that never went away.

Tony didn't get it, but he didn't _have_ to, and it didn't matter that it made no sense to him at all. A moment later, his expression shifted slightly, softening just a fraction; he reached over and barely squeezed Steve's knee, and Steve wondered somewhat idly how him reassuring Tony about his father ended up with Tony comforting him.

The hurt would never go away, but it diminished with time; he would never get his flying car or fondue or his dance from the people that promised it to him, never again be plied with bad drinks around a too-small table and Jones translating Dernier's French, but he has Howard's son and legacy and his new team, and that would just have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This was admittedly a kinder interpretation of Howard's 'greatest creation' speech than most, but...they're _Starks._ If anyone can understand the love and care one puts into something s/he creates, it's Tony. Besides...'greatest creation', even though Howard'd spent the last nearly 50 years of his life obsessively looking for Steve, whom he had also 'created'?
> 
> I do think Howard loved Tony. I also think Howard was very, very damaged by the war (and the ones that followed after). That's only an explanation, and not an excuse; Howard may not have meant to, but intent is not action, and by all metrics he was a failure as a parent. That being said, I liked the idea of Tony having dealt with it better than Steve; he's had more time to reflect, anyway, and Steve, having been orphaned from a very young age, would probably have a very knee-jerk reaction about the family Howard threw away.
> 
> A note on timelines: Obadiah states in IM1 “30 years I held you up!”, but I always had the impression that he was around for very formative years in Tony's life, which would be a little more difficult if Howard didn't partner with Obadiah until Tony was about 10. I took it to mean that Obadiah partnered with Howard shortly after the war, and slowly took on more and more responsibility in running SI until Howard was mostly just hands-off and doing the technical work while Obadiah ran the business end. It would give Obadiah more exposure in Tony's younger years as he'd have more time, too.
> 
> Also, I ignored the VE day scene from CA: TFA, because I found it unlikely the Howling Commandos, a front-lines special forces group, only suffered casualties of Steve and Bucky over so long.


End file.
